It is likely that the man is Wing Commander Frank Chapman who had a distinguished career with the Royal Australian Air Force before his death in March 1943.

The search for the man started when Shane Porteous found a sketch simply entitled "Frank" in his deceased father's artworks.

Mr Porteous released some of his father's sketches to the organisers of the Bowen Catalina memorial to help locate families and relatives of other crew and passengers, and during research a photograph of a RAAF pilot named Frank was located.

"We have a photograph of him, unfortunately it is not the same pose that my father drew, but we think the similarity is quite clear enough to say that we strongly believe that that is who Frank is," Mr Porteous said.

Mr Porteous says working with the memorial organisers and learning Frank's identity has made the journey of discovery about the Catalina crash off Bowen even more meaningful.

"It has made the whole thing much more vivid and much more personal.

"I can't remember my father, of course there are lots of family photos and things, but suddenly in the last two years in fact I have found out so much more about that accident," he said.

This month's Catalina Memorial marks the 70th anniversary of the crash of a World War Two Catalina aircraft off the coast of Bowen in which 14 people including second pilot Stanley John Porteous were killed.